Sofia* met Jack after chatting on Bumble and they went out for a couple of post-work drinks in Chelsea before we met up for a post-date debrief.

‘I think it went well!’ she exclaimed, bouncing into the beer garden.

A bit keen perhaps (he’d apparently spent the first hour saying how his three-year plan was to find a ‘girl’ he could marry and relocate to Bristol with), but decent.

So she was taken back a bit when she received a message from Jack shortly after saying that the date hadn’t been a success.

‘Let’s be honest, tonight didn’t go that well,’ it read.

‘However, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had any for a while. So if you fancied catching up next week for a few drinks and a shag, let me know.’

We sat around in stunned silence.

Even the guy who was with us was baffled.

Apps have made the process of getting to know someone, of securing dates speed up immeasurably – so it shouldn’t be too shocking when people aren’t prepared to pussyfoot around.

For many, Bumble and Tinder are little more than hook-up services.

But still, we were appalled and Sophia was fuming. Why didn’t Jack just say how he felt at the time? Why not cut it loose before?

The second incident concerned my friend Gina, who had matched with a bloke called Rob – also on Bumble.

She started the conversation and almost immediately was faced with a barrage of abuse.

The guy claimed that they’d matched a number of times before, both on Bumble and Tinder, but that she’d never bothered to chat – meaning that she was now desperate.

After a while, he started calling her a ‘delusional fattie’.

We wanted to find out why someone would spend their time digging strangers out, so a mate took over Gina’s phone and decided to confront Rob.

When asked what the f*ck his deal was, Rob said that he’d called Gina a ‘fat cow’ because she was a time waster – and that it was acceptable to send her abuse because he wasn’t ‘physically connected’ to her.

‘I don’t have to be nice over the internet when someone annoys me,’ he said, ‘but I do in real life as the ramifications are much more severe.’

‘If that makes me a coward, then so be it. I think the way women treat men on dating apps is appalling…(Gina) insulted me, just in a more insidious way.’

In case you’re confused, Gina’s crime was simply not replying to this guy’s texts for 20 minutes.

It’s bonkers. And what’s sad is that the guy isn’t an idiot – he’s an articulate bloke with an MA from Goldsmiths.

Being rude online is completely accepted. There are even apps helping people to come up with snide remarks to use against the people they match with.

Flints is a chat up line service for Tinder, and it’s gems include one-liners like: ‘You’re not hot enough to be this boring’.

Only a complete dick would say that kind of thing to someone at a bar – so why would you send it to someone on your phone? And why are companies encouraging that kind of behaviour?

Mind you, this sort of bad behaviour isn’t just verbal. Blocking people without reason can feel oddly brutal and aggressive.

It’s happened to James a few times.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

‘There’s no explanation,’ he tells Metro.co.uk.

‘One minute they’re there, the next they’re not. Getting blocked is mostly fine except for one time when I’d moved from the app to Whatsapp, arranged to meet up, got on very well – only to be told she didn’t have time to date as she’d started a new job (the day of the date, first mention of this) and didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

‘Before I could even reply I’d been blocked on WhatsApp and Tinder and didn’t even have the right of response. AND she looked like Selena Gomez so more heartbreak.’

Can you imagine actively telling someone to f*ck off (apropos of nothing) in real life? Or fat shaming them? Or telling them that while you have no connection, you’re desperate and DTF?

Why do we feel like we can behave like complete b****** online and on apps?

‘I think the answer is a bit intuitive, but nonetheless, dating apps weren’t developed because of the time people would need to spend socialising, but more because they feel comfortable breaking the ice online,’ psychotherapist Ales Zivkovic tells Metro.co.uk.

(Picture: Getty/MylesGoode)

‘Also, when we meet people online, we have a wide variety of people to choose from and what we see are only their photos—there is no personal contact. Because of that, we objectify people. They are not people anymore for us but articles on the virtual shelf that we choose from. And when a person is objectified like that, we do not feel shame if we are rejected or not approached.’

All too often, Ales says, we depersonalise people on apps to the point that we don’t think twice about rejecting them or saying things that we’d never say in real life.

‘It makes it easier for the user to just shamelessly and un-empathically spill their rage, anger, contempt and their own shame and rejection onto the other person. This will also tend to pull quite “psychopathic” traits out of people that in their real life sometimes seem to go along keeping them under control, repressed and suppressed.’

So what effect is digital dating having over our behaviours in general?

Ales says that Tinder and others are causing us to ‘unlearn’ our social skills.

‘People who use them don’t need any social skills to get a date. The only thing they need to do is swipe and send a pickup line with the right emoji. People who have no regard for others and have no social skills whatsoever can get a date – which they wouldn’t be able to do in real life.

‘So, what dating apps do is stimulate such behaviour and destimulate real life interaction. This creates social cripples who do not know how to engage in real life relationships.’

Of course, when you’re being harassed and abused online, you can just block them or delete the app – which you can’t do IRL.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

‘Dating apps also have a narcissistic side to them—as does the majority of social media platforms—so they do attract more narcissistic users that primarily want recognition more than real date or relationship. They will be satisfied with a swipe and interest of another user and not really care for anything else. This is also part of the reason for ghosting.’

‘They will be satisfied with a swipe and interest of another user and not really care for anything else. This is also part of the reason for ghosting.’

Ghosting, breadcrumbing, zombeying – they’re all symptoms of the disease. How can many of us expect to make a connection online if we struggle to see the other user as a real person?

As technology advances to try and make our lives easier and more streamlined, it seems like we’re continuously running into fresh issues. And in this case, perhaps we only have ourselves to blame.